If you’re in the market for a mid-range, cheap-yet-powerful smartphone, ASUS thinks they have the phone for you. The Asus ZenFone 3 rivals similar phones like the OnePlus and the ZTE Axon 7 that offer high-end specs, but for several hundred dollars less than other flagship devices.

You might be familiar with last year’s ZenFone 2ASUS ZenFone 2 Review and GiveawayASUS ZenFone 2 Review and GiveawayAs more people are fed up with smartphones that cost well over $600, some manufacturers are taking notice. ASUS brings us the ZenFone 2, a $299 phone with internal specs that easily trump its competitors.Read More, but this is a whole different beast. The ZenFone 2 was bulky, plastic, and had terrible battery life. The ZenFone 3 is thin, made of glass and metal, and has great battery life. It doesn’t even seem like a successor to the 2 — more an entirely different phone.

Hardware

This phone feels so premium. There’s no other way to put it. For under $400, this kind of build quality is unheard of. With a glass back panel and curved aluminum sides, the ZenFone 3 feels sleek and comfortable in your hand — if a bit slippery. Asus’s signature concentric circles radiate out from around the camera fingerprint sensor on the back in an incredibly elegant fashion.

The curved glass on the front of the device leaves the edges feeling polished and high-end. Everything about this smartphone’s exterior screams modern and top of the line.

The textured power button and volume rocker can be found on the right side of the device, the headphone jack is up top, the microSD card and SIM card slot is on the left, and the USB Type-C port and speaker are on the bottom.

For navigation, the ZenFone 3 relies on capacitive keys rather than a physical home button like the Galaxy S7 or virtual keys like the HTC 10. There’s no back light for the buttons, which I actually prefer, but some folks have complained that they’re impossible to see in the dark (but, come on, you know where those three buttons are).

On the rear of the phone, the 16 MP camera juts out a little. Just beneath it, there’s a fingerprint scanner that’s blazingly fast. The only reservation I have about it is the placement — it’s great if you’re holding the phone, but if it’s resting on a table, you’ll be typing out your PIN to open the device.

The screen is a 1080p Super IPS+ display, which is crystal clear and brighter than most other smartphones I’ve tested, making it easier to see in direct sunlight.

Camera

That 16 MP shooter on the rear is really quite good. While the camera is usually the first thing to go when cutting corners for a cheap device, Asus really went all out here. Images are crisp and clear, and the Camera app has a plethora of features. There’s even Optical Image Stabilization, which keeps your videos super smooth and reduces blur from shaky hands. But what impressed me the most is how quickly it can take photos in succession — something a lot of phones struggle with.

I found the 8 MP front-facing camera to be better than most other smartphones that only have 5 MP front-facing cameras. Don’t worry, your selfies will be lovely.

Speaker

The single speaker along the bottom of the ZenFone 3 is one of the few weak points of this phone. It’s not that loud, and the placement on the bottom isn’t as nice as a front-facing speaker would be.

Asus has included an “Outdoor Mode” feature that you can toggle on and off when adjusting the volume, but it just seems to sacrifice sound quality for a bit more volume. Overall, the audio you’ll get out of this is definitely acceptable, but it’s not the best.

ZenUI is a big, bright, round, colorful take on the Android experience. It reminds me somewhat of how Samsung’s TouchWiz interface used to look (Samsung has dialed it down in recent years) because it’s kind of busy, cluttered, and immature.

But, that’s personal preference. Maybe you like how it looks! There are also a bunch of new “features” that you won’t find in stock Android, like shortcuts on the lockscreen, extra shortcuts in the Quick Settings, ZenMotion gestures, themes, Easy mode, and Kids mode.

Asus has preloaded a number of apps that you can either look at as bloatware or as helpful tools. For the most part, I saw them as the former. For example, two pre-loaded Yahoo! apps display in Chinese even when the system language is set to English

ZenTalk, ZenCircle, and Webstorage are Asus’s own messaging, social, and cloud service apps that I doubt anyone actually uses. The list goes on and on with pointless software, especially when apps serve the same purpose as the built-in Google apps — like a Gallery app even though Google Photos is installed too.

It’s not all bad news, though. Mobile Manager has some useful features, like controlling which apps can automatically start when you turn your phone on. And when you tap the Recents key, you get three buttons along the bottom for quick access to certain tools like pinning apps, clearing your RAM, or viewing your list of apps.

And even if you do like all of the software customizations, they might mean that the ZenFone 3 receives painfully slow updates (because it takes longer to update the code with all of Asus’s customizations). I’d be shocked if Asus delivered 7.0 Nougat to this phone within the next 6 months, and I’d be even more shocked if it was upgraded past that. Asus hasn’t even officially confirmed that it will see a Nougat update.

Battery Life

Given the weak battery life of its predecessor, I didn’t have high hopes for the ZenFone 3, but it actually turned out to last quite a while. The 3,000mAh battery lasted through every day without a problem — unless I was running it down with intensive apps.

However, the best part might be that it uses USB Type-CWhat Is USB Type-C?What Is USB Type-C?Ah, the USB plug. It is as ubiquitous now as it is notorious for never being able to be plugged in right the first time.Read More, the new standard that is reversible and allows for faster charger and faster data transfers. Since the ZenFone 3 also support Quick Charge 3.0, it can be fully juiced up in about an hour and a half.

Should You Buy It?

To me, I feel like the Asus ZenFone 3 is an extremely well-designed phone at a low price that’s hampered largely by its intrusive and bloated operating system. If you’re a stock Android-lover, you’ll hate it. But if you’re new to the Android platform or you just like the interface, it might not be such a bad choice.

And for less than $400 (depending on which color you get), the build quality is really unmatched.

Our verdict of the Asus ZenFone 3:If you can put up with the look and feel of ZenUI, this is phone is an amazing value. However, if you’re really committed to having the newest version of Android and just can’t stand ZenUI, you should hold off.810

over the past models, Zenfone has earned its credibility when it comes to phone photography because of its unique camera features. But to be honest on this one, Id rather go or LG G5. The wide angle feature of the phone definitely attracts users who's very fond of taking selfies and taking shots closely similar to DSLR's quality images.

I have the Zenfone 2 and, besides the so-called bloatware it is a decent phone. Zen UI lets you disable most of the stuff you don't need, but some of them are useful: What's Next for reminders, Splendid for Bluelight filter, Power Saver and Mobile manager for blocking annoying apps or acting like a firewall, Audio wizard is decent, even mirror is sometimes useful. I agree that email, browser and some other apps are overkill, but 50% of them are useful and saved me the time of finding alternatives. To each his own, I guess.
If you say that the battery is better than the one on ZF2, consider me for the giveaway.
Cheers

All right here I try again with the hopes of beating the odds and winning a phone of repute from a website that stretches of the well worn path to deliver for me a comprehensive review. The greatest I say , No one listens no one hears but I do and I hope that one despite all odds I will win that almost mystical give away of a phone. And as I grow old I will tell my children and grandchildren of the time I won a phone an epic to behold.

I was falling in love with asus 5 for the first time. I love its photography technology. I remember when i took a photo from the hill, in Bedugul, Bali, Indonesia. In the morning. I named that picture Heavenly Morning. Asus captured that moment perfectly with its 8MP rear camera. And now, i wander how that picture would have been if i have taken that picture with this asus 3? Im sure that it would be my best moment, best photo i ever take

I really hope I could get this new Asus Zenfone 3. I have used both its predecessors (Asus Zenfone 5 and Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe) and I'm loving it. I don't mind the ZenUI because in my opinion, that makes the Asus line-up stands out from the rest of the smartphones (though I do hate bloatwares). I hope you will consider my entries. By the way, good review.